


The Wolf and the Dead Man

by Innwich



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Healing, M/M, Scents & Smells, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3499610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans didn’t usually smell like they were in the early stage of decomposition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wolf and the Dead Man

Sebastian smelled Joseph before he saw him.

The smell came from a park tucked behind a grocery store.

It was pretty easy to pick up when Joseph always had the scent of death on him. Humans didn’t usually smell like they were in the early stage of decomposition.

It’d messed Sebastian up in the first couple of weeks after Joseph had been assigned to him. On one of their cases, there had been a fresh corpse that had been still warm to the touch. Sebastian had kept eyeing it while the guys from forensics were setting up their equipment in the crime scene. He’d expected the stiff to wake up and tell them who had been the killer, because that had been what his nose had told him. Some dead people could go around jotting notes in their little notebooks, and the murder vic hadn’t smelled much worse than Joseph.

Eventually, though, Sebastian had gotten used to Joseph’s smell. It’d blended into the background scents that Sebastian easily ignored.

Joseph was sitting on a bench. He had his coat buttoned up to his neck and Sebastian’s trench coat folded on his lap. The paint on the bench was peeling, much like the paint on the slide and swings and crooked seesaw.

Sebastian trotted up to Joseph. Despite being on all fours, Sebastian was big enough to look him in the eye.

Sebastian growled.

“I don’t understand a word of that, Sebastian,” Joseph said. “You’ll have to change back into human if you want to say something.”

Sebastian eyeballed him. He could just go home and leave Joseph out here on his own. They could do this tomorrow at work over a hot cup of coffee. However, Sebastian had been drinking alone at the bar before the bartender had kicked him out. Everything was bottled up inside of him, and riling up the dogs in the neighborhood with his howling hadn’t done a goddamned thing for his mood.

So he shifted.

His bones cracked and popped as they were shuffled around in him. His tail was sucked back into his spine. After his fur retreated back in his body and his snout shortened into a human jaw again, Sebastian was left sitting naked on his haunches in the grimy ground.

Wordlessly, Joseph handed him his trench coat. Sebastian put it on and slumped into the bench next to Joseph. He was dressed like a flasher, but he’d drunk past the point where he would care about something like that. The ground was a lot colder under his feet than it’d been under his paws.

“You smell like wet fur and whiskey,” Joseph said.

“No one asked you to be here,” Sebastian said.

“I figured you might want to talk,” Joseph said. “How did your search go?”

“What do you think, detective?” Sebastian said, speaking more gruffly than he should to one of the few people that gave a shit about him.

If Joseph was mad, he didn’t show it. He had a better poker face than most of the perps that passed through their interrogation rooms. “You’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

“I’ve heard that one before.” Sebastian sighed. “What are you doing here, Joseph? Thought you hate the cold.”

“Myra wouldn’t want you to disappear too,” Joseph said.

If Joseph could have his way, the precinct would be as hot as an oven in the winter. Although most detectives at the precinct thought Joseph wore his gloves to keep from putting on new ones every time he entered a crime scene, the truth was that Joseph didn’t have enough blood to go around his body to keep his extremities warm.

(Probably also made it easier to break into blood banks without leaving fingerprints. Not that they ever talked about their dietary habits much.)

“Don’t think she can want anything now,” Sebastian said. “It’s been three months. I can’t smell her scent in the house anymore.”

Joseph didn’t try to offer him empty promises.

They sat in silence in the night.

Somehow, the precinct had managed to pair up two of the few creatures in the city without knowing what they were. Sebastian had never minded having a vampire for a partner. Joseph was a good detective and had an eye for details.

Some nights, though, Sebastian would wake up confused and disoriented from the scents in his dreams, half-convinced that he was working with a dead man walking.

\- - -

“You okay?” Sebastian said.

Joseph muttered an agreement.

They both had their guns out, just in case another one of those things appeared around the corner.

Joseph had recovered enough to shoot at those things, but he was trailing sluggishly behind Sebastian while Sebastian took the lead in exploring the rooms of the hospital. Sebastian couldn’t blame him. The stale milky liquid in the tub had stunk like hell and Sebastian hoped they would never found out what it was.

Sebastian stepped into another room, with Joseph following him into it.

That was when a shrill noise hit them.

It was like someone was blowing a dog whistle right next to his ears. Sebastian clapped his hands over his ears. It didn’t block out the sound. He squeezed his eyes shut. His head was going to crack wide open. “This noise.”

Joseph made a wounded sound.

“Joseph.” Sebastian turned around, his eyes watering from the pain.

Joseph lunged for him and started choking him. Sebastian gasped for breath as he pried at Joseph’s hands, but they were wrapped like steel bars around his neck.

Sebastian stared in horror at him. Joseph’s face was a mess of bubbling skin and blood. His canine teeth had lengthened and sliced through his bottom lip. His eyes were gone, leaving two sunken holes behind his glasses.

“Jo-” Sebastian scrabbled at Joseph’s hands.

Suddenly, Joseph broke away from him.

Sebastian coughed to get air into his lungs again.

Standing several feet away, Joseph was doubled over and breathing heavily.

“Joseph?” Sebastian said. He couldn’t see Joseph’s face, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

When Joseph looked up, he was his old self again, except for the red dripping out of his nose. He wiped at his nose, and stared at the blood that glistened on the back of his glove.

“I don’t know what came over me,” Joseph said. He’d barely finished speaking before he coughed violently into his own hand.

Sebastian flinched at the sudden sound, and took a step back away from Joseph. If Joseph turned, Sebastian would have to put empty a clip into his head and burn him until there was he was nothing but a charred corpse on the floor.

It would be so easy to light the match, but Sebastian didn’t think he could take down Joseph like he’d Connelly.

Could he?

“What was that?” Joseph said, watching Sebastian with bleary eyes. Joseph’s face as smooth as it’d always been. There was no sign of that fanged skull, and yet Sebastian couldn’t get that image of Joseph out of his head. It was carved into the back of his mind; it was worse than the nightmares he’d had of Joseph.

“I wish I knew,” Sebastian said. “There’s something wrong with this place.”

\- - -

The only things left of the castle were worn wooden floors and crumbled brick walls.

It was a sunny day, so Sebastian had a clear view as he crouched low behind a wall and aimed his sniper rifle at the towers. There was only one of those things left operating the arrow turrets up in the towers.

Joseph was staying back and chopping up monsters that were coming up to them. The dull thuds of the axe cutting into flesh made for a steady soundtrack in the background, while Sebastian focused on aiming his sniper rifle.

The monster stuck its head out into Sebastian’s line of fire. It went down like a sack of rocks.

Finally.

“Watch out!” Joseph shouted.

Sebastian whipped his head around and ducked when a monster swiped at him. It was one of those ugly bastards that had a botched arts-and-crafts project for a face. It’d gotten away from Joseph before Joseph could put him down. Before Sebastian could take out his gun and shoot the thing to high heavens, Joseph swung down his axe and caught the thing in his head.

Blood went flying as the thing’s skull burst open.

“Shit,” Sebastian said, picking brains out of his vest. His heart thudded hard in his chest. When he had a good look at Joseph, he said, “Fuck.”

There was a gaping gouge on Joseph’s cheek, cutting deep enough for Sebastian to see a glimmer of white under the throbbing flesh. One of those things had tried to claw his eye out.

What threw Sebastian off was how little blood there was.

Although the wound was an inch wide, there was only a trickle of blood leaking from it. It looked just like a post-mortem wound.

“Joseph, your face,” Sebastian said.

“It’s not healing right,” Joseph said. He covered his mouth and coughed again. It sounded worse than when Joseph had turned into that nightmarish version of himself briefly. It wracked through Joseph and his shoulders were shaking.

Blood dotted the ground in front of him.

“Shit. Should you be coughing up so much blood?” Sebastian said.

“No, I don’t have a lot of blood in me to start with,” Joseph said.

“Do you need blood?” Sebastian said. “I can give you mind if that’s what you need.”

“I can’t drink your blood, Sebastian,” Joseph said. “Werewolf blood and vampire don’t mix well.”

“Right,” Sebastian said. “Crap. I don’t think the blood of those things is gonna work either.”

“No,” Joseph said. “But there’s something else you can do.”

“What is it?”

“Can you hold me?”

“What?”

“I don’t generate body heat very well. I’m cold and it’s slowing down my metabolism,” Joseph said. “I’m not healing at the rate that I should be.”

“Are you saying you want a hug?”

Joseph grimaced. “It’s weird.”

“Hey, if you need a hug, I’ve got plenty of that to go around,” Sebastian said. “Come here.”

Sebastian hugged Joseph as tightly as he could.

In the summers, Sebastian had been kicked out of bed by Mura for than once, because he was too hot and they only had a fan in their room. He would hug her just to annoy her. But in the winters, Myra would cuddle up to him and called him a furnace, and those would be the best nights of his life.

Kidman was god-knew-where and Leslie was lost in this world. Joseph was the only thing he had left in this world, this world that kept changing around them. He was his only constant in this ever-morphing landscape.

“You can let go now,” Joseph said.

His wounds closed before Sebastian’s eyes. As Sebastian watched, Joseph’s skin stitched itself back together. There was color to his skin again and he looked less like he’d just walked out of a morgue.

“I’ve been told I give pretty good hugs,” Sebastian said. “Didn’t think they are this good though.”

Joseph gave him a weak chuckle. “Thanks. I feel better.”

“It’s the least I can do. Can’t have you die on me.”

“I haven’t been alive for a while, Sebastian,” Joseph said. “Just trying to hang on and not die a more permanent death.”

“What is bringing this on?” Sebastian said.

“I almost killed you back there, Sebastian,” Joseph said, staring at the pile of decapitated bodies that were lying at their feet. “I don’t know if I’m any different from those things.”

“Listen to me: You’re nothing like them,” Sebastian said.

“How can you know that?” Joseph said.

“I know what my nose tells me,” Sebastian said.

Joseph didn’t have a strong smell of his own. Most of his scent came from the cheap washing powder he always used. Under the faint waft of expired flesh, Sebastian smelled a whiff of adrenaline in his congealing blood.

“For one thing, I can smell the fear on you,” Sebastian said.

“Excuse me for being worried while we were being chased all over the place by monsters, Sebastian.”

“That’s not what I meant. Did you see how those things move? They barge right into me even when they see me holding a gun to their head.”

“What are you saying?”

“Those things can’t feel fear, but you do. You’re a far way from becoming one of them,” Sebastian said. “Trust me, Joseph.”

“Are you sure?” Joseph said.

“I’ve never been surer in my life,” Sebastian said, squeezing Joseph’s shoulder. Joseph smiled back at him. Despite the blood covering their clothes, they were grinning at each other and sharing a sense of camaraderie that they hadn’t had since the fire and the bottles that had driven a wedge between them. “Come on, let’s keep moving. We’ll find a way out of this place.”

\- - -

** Epilogue **

They let him go after only two rounds of questioning. Sebastian guessed he had to thank the Chief for that.

Once Sebastian stepped out of the interrogation room, he was hit with the smells of smoke and alcohol and piss and vomit and too many strangers. It was like opening his eyes to a sunny day after a deep slumber; he wished he hadn’t done it.

Sebastian steadied himself against a wall and waited for his head to stop spinning.

“You alright, detective?” a uniformed officer said.

“Just a little dizzy,” Sebastian said.

He made his way back to his desk at the back of the precinct, where the scents were less chaotic. In fact, from the smell of it, no one aside the janitors had been here for a while.

A slim black notebook was sitting on Joseph’s desk.

Joseph never let it out of his sight. Maybe Joseph had left it here before he’d been kidnapped, or Kidman had put the notebook here for Sebastian to find as another indiscernible favor, like leaving him behind in Beacon Mental Hospital. Either way, Sebastian wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

He flipped open the notebook. The first thing he saw was a picture of himself tucked under the front cover.

“What is this doing here?” Sebastian said.

The pages were covered in dates and names and addresses. Sebastian recognized some of them from the notes he’d made when investigating Myra’s disappearance. There were no mentions of a nightmarish landscape or horse statue puzzles. The newest entries, however, contained testimonies from Sebastian’s landlord and neighbors. A timeline had been drawn, pinpointing the locations where Sebastian had last been seen.

_(“Myra wouldn’t want you to disappear too.”)_

“How long have I been missing?” Sebastian said.

But Joseph wasn’t here to answer him.

Sebastian buried his face in his hands and tried to breathe. Joseph had been there for his wedding and the birth of Lily. He’d been there when Lily had died and Myra had disappeared down the rabbit hole. Sebastian had known him for longer than he’d known his own daughter. Sebastian wasn’t sure what nine years meant to a vampire, but nine years was a pretty big chuck of his life.

A couple of detectives hurried past Sebastian, and he caught a snippet of their words.

“Heard the feds are coming.”

“Well, shit. We’re gonna have feds butting in on our cases?”

Sebastian touched a piece of gauze taped over the hole in his nape.

If the government had their hands on the STEM machine, then it would only be a matter of time before they wanted to find out how the machine worked. Soon it wouldn’t be enough for them to cut up Connelly and Dr. Jimenez; they would come knocking on Sebastian’s door.

Called him paranoid, but Sebastian had seen enough to know he didn’t want to be there when someone came looking for a live experiment subject.

It wasn’t like Sebastian had much to stay for now that Joseph was gone too.

Before Sebastian left for the night, he put his badge and his gun on his desk. He took off with Joseph’s notebook and a scarf that Kidman had forgotten on her chair.

Sebastian was too good at losing the people he loved. He’d lost Lily. He’d lost Myra. He would be damned if he let Joseph slipped through his grasp too.

He knew who the enemies were this time round.

He had their scents.

And he was going after Kidman and her people.


End file.
